Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon

Phyllis Trowbridge | Painting in Time

North View Gallery

 

• Exhibition Dates: February 24 – March 21, 2025
• Gallery hours: Monday – Friday, 8am-4pm, Saturdays by appointment
• Opening reception: Saturday, March 1, 3:00 – 5:00 p.m.
  
• Cultivating Presence in Nature: plein air painting workshop in conjunction with the WOHESC Conference: Wednesday, March 5, 1:00 – 2:30 p.m. (WORKSHOP FULL)
  
• Artist Talk: Wednesday, March 12, 2:00 – 3:00 p.m.
• Saturday Hours: March 15, 11:00 – 1:00 p.m.

In the News: “Phyllis Trowbridge: Meditating on Place” by Prudence Roberts, Oregon Arts Watch, March 5, 2025.

Phyllis Trowbridge has been closely observing the Pacific Northwest landscape for decades, often returning to the same site year after year, tracking subtle and dramatic changes in each environment she selects. Ranging from massive canvases on which dignified oaks tower, to smaller, more intimate views of her garden and the flowers it produces, Trowbridge’s work hints at the value of careful attention and the joys of returning to a site again and again, painting in time.

 

Art historian Prudence Roberts, who wrote the essay accompanying this exhibition, describes Trowbridge’s work as spontaneous images of places the artist loves. Trowbridge does not work from photographs and instead paints her canvases directly on site, returning to a site multiple times to complete each piece. This approach gives her work an immediacy and intensity, yet, as Roberts notes, it has also meant that Trowbridge’s landscapes have become unintentional records exposing the impacts of climate change.

 

Thanks to Trowbridge’s careful attention, the work in this exhibition inadvertently documents the consequences of drought, fire and heat domes on the ancient trees that populate Sauvie Island or the lush, moss-covered greenery of Forest Park and even on the choices Trowbridge makes in the personal landscape of her garden. As Roberts explains, “In her landscapes as in all her paintings, Phyllis Trowbridge shows us what is there. Not what she hopes to see, not an idealized vista, but what she finds when she takes out her oil paints or watercolors and sets up her easel at one of her favorite sites.”

 

This exhibition features a decade’s worth of Trowbridge’s careful observations in the Pacific Northwest, highlighting the diversity of her plein air painting. It is accompanied by an essay written by art historian, Prudence Roberts.

About the artist:

Phyllis Trowbridge has been working outdoors, painting and drawing in the landscape year-round for over 35 years. Since moving to Oregon in 1992, she has exhibited her work in local galleries and in numerous invitational and juried shows. She received her MFA from American University in Washington, DC. and since then has taught painting and drawing classes and workshops at a variety of local colleges and programs around the state. She currently teaches at the Rock Creek campus of Portland Community College. Learn more about her work at phyllistrowbridge.com.